The Outbreak
by Chris Luca
Summary: Q had cackled at his invention, inspired by the surge of zombie-related games and movies. "I call it the brain liquefier!" he'd boasted to his minions. He wasn't laughing now.
1. Chapter 1

I own nothing, but a very vivid imagination

* * *

The knock on his door was distinctive. Only Miss Moneypenny ever managed such a congruent mix of urgent, yet polite knocking. Q was halfway to the door, when the second knock was equally as distinctive, but this one was the brute force of a double-00 agent wrapped in a thin veneer of charm. Together, it quite possibly meant the world was ending. Q went from groggily half asleep to wide-awake in an instant.

He opened his door in a hurry, already rearming the defences before James Bond had set a first step through. It didn't help his adrenaline any that both he and Eve slipped inside while facing the hallway, guns out and cocked, ready for action. Q almost slammed the door closed, but Bond caught his hand before he could. "Be as quiet as you possible can," Eve murmured in a gentle whisper, just as gently letting the door fall soundlessly in the lock.

Bond used his hold on Q's arm to tug him further into the room, but Eve stayed right there at the door, gun aimed at chest height. Bond seemed very reluctant to stow his gun, but did regardless. "Hands out," he ordered, though with less force than normally, as he didn't raise his voice above a smooth whisper. Perplexed, Q obeyed.

Bond carefully fitted twin silver bands around each of his wrists, adjusting them to the right size. Q flinched a little as a thick needle pierced his flesh and stayed like that, though the sting quickly faded even after he'd twisted his wrists around. A quick glance proved Bond and Moneypenny were outfitted with the same accessories.

"No," Q whispered in dread. "These were a joke! I designed these as a joke!"

He remembered to keep his voice down, because though he might expect suck a tasteless joke as this from Bond or even Moneypenny, they wouldn't have done this together. Also, he only ever made two pairs of the cuffs and yet he definitely counted three now.

"And the world might thank you for it one day," Bond remarked dryly, his gun back in hand and pointed back at the door they'd come through. "MI5 started mass production yesterday eve, when they got confirmation that they worked on the little problem they've been hiding for the last couple weeks." The agent's eyes flashed with barely restrained fury.

"If you have a weapon here, get it. M send us to bring you back to HQ. Make as little noise as you can. They don't seem to register much beside it, but they've proven right persistent buggers once they've locked onto a target."

"Fuck!" It was a good thing his voice failed him, otherwise the exclamation would have been far too loud indeed. Twirling into motion with all the experience handling 00-related crisises brought him, Q ducked into his bedroom on silent feet, rooting through his closet all the way to the back for a chest he didn't usually need in real life.

"007, to me," he ordered in a terse whisper. "Put that on, then send Eve back here for the same." It figured that the roleplaying outfits he'd gotten for the latest hit in zombie-killing games would have to be used in a real life situation. He himself was already stripping down, reaching for his own sturdy black threads.

"Is this kevlar?" Bond murmured in appreciation, buttoning up the commando-style clothing, somewhat uncomfortable with the high collar, yet pleased his neck would be protected.

"I almost went for the cheap knock-off version, but it isn't like I have anything else to spend my money on and I actually get paid a ridiculous amount," Q confided, dividing the entirety of his arsenal into three separate army bags, keeping only two guns and a knife on himself.

Eve gave him an appreciative squeeze on the shoulder once she had tucked herself into her suit, fishing an extra gun out of her bag to slip into a pocket. Q nodded at her, handing out ear-pieces to the agents.

"Eve, get all the medication from the bathroom please," the young quartermaster asked, while he emptied his fridge of all the bottles of water, stuffing them in their bags as well. Handing one of the bags to Bond, he asked: "Do I divide the food as well, or is it better to travel as light as possible?"

Weighing the bag in hand, eyes never leaving the door, Bond decided: "Add non-perishables of nutritional value. Be quick about it. We need to head back, before the official story breaks on the news and the roads close because of panicked civilian travel."

Q nodded and hurried through his cupboards. He didn't have a lot that qualified, so he was back in less than a minute, closing the three bags and swinging his own on his back.

"Done." Eve returned. "Good thinking, Q," she praised in a horse voice, visibly uneasy at having to head back out again.

"They walk and run at normal speed, but at least they're easily recognisable. Gun out, Quartermaster. When you see a zombie, aim for the brain. Don't stop to help anyone. We need you inside Q-branche to coordinate if we want to stand any chance of convincing the rest of the world not to nuke us as a quarantine measure."

Q swallowed heavily and tried to take comfort at the silver shine around his wrist, which would at least insure that if he died, he would not be rising again.


	2. Chapter 2

It didn't really register exactly how far it was from the front door to the parking garage, until you were forced to stealthily sneak the distance while hiding from decayed, flesh eating zombies and toting around heavy bags mostly filled with weaponry.

It was too bloody far for comfort.

With the bloody being far too literal.

The zombie rising was more pervasive than he had anticipated. Already he'd seen his own neighbours moaning for brains, while silently praying they wouldn't notice him. With the all-seeing hacking access he had to every server in the world, Q expected he would have picked up signs… alerts… panicked YouTube videos of unfortunate victims… But this was the first he'd heard of the outbreak.

Which meant that either there was a hacker out there who'd spend his entire days cleaning up the hints of whatever foolhardy business Bond had insinuated MI5 was involved in… or going from healthy human to undead critter took entirely too little time. Possibly even both.

Eve had developed a nervous tick since encountering her first zombie. She would gently rub a finger over her new silver bracelets, resting her hand there for a moment in the same manner that Bond kept his hand firmly on his gun. She seemed especially spooked by the children. For once Q was genuinely grateful for his avid gamer experiences. He had expected the tiny undead. In fact, he was waiting for the first canine variant to show up. They always did, right?

There was a tiny light of amusement in the look Bond shot him. The double-0 leaned closer and murmured softly: "Pigs and monkeys, Q. They're far closer to human physiology." Q sneered at him, then pouted. The spy always had to stomp all over his fantasies. Though fear-filled thoughts about what kind of zombies he was going to be killed by _were_ somewhat different from shower-induced ones of what Bond looked like naked and pinning him. Though Q didn't have to really fantasize about the naked part – every single one of his handlers knew that Bond considered clothing optional most of the time.

Shaking his head sharply to get his thoughts back on track and his eyes away from Bond's really quite magnificent physique, he missed the cheeky grin Bond shot a disgruntled miss Moneypenny. Had the situation been less dire, money might have exchanged hands.

He didn't think the situation could get much more dire than a zombie outbreak.

Well, unless the rest of the world decided to nuke the entirety of Britain out of existence. That might just be worse.

"How much further to the car?" Q whispered, thankful that the earpieces he'd been tinkering with in his spare time now allowed him to communicate with Bond without making excessive noise.

"No car," miss Moneypenny whispered back, quickly elaborating before their Quartermaster could panic. "The roads are mostly clear of _them_, but there have already been a lot of road-blocking accidents. We're using motorbikes. We'll take up less space, can go faster and have more freedom to fire weapons that way."

"Stick with me," Bond ordered tersely. "And Q… you were named Priority One. Do you understand?"

Q swallowed heavily, closing his eyes and gave a jerky nod of his head.

He understood all right. He heard the capital letters used. M had declared him Priority One. On her own command, Bond would kill anyone standing in the way of his survival without hesitation, even M herself.

It didn't make him feel any safer.

It made him feel sick.

He had no idea what they thought he could do about hordes of the walking dead that made him so important. He did computers. He wasn't good with the violence and he couldn't cobble together a cure…

He breathed in, held his breath, breathed out. He felt a warm hand curling around his neck and he raised startled eyes towards the spy trying to comfort him. James wasn't watching him. Was instead watching a bloodied elderly lady drag herself slowly around the lobby, looking for the next fleshy meat she could sink her teeth into, his gun steadily following her approach.

"We have to move!" Moneypenny breathed out urgently.

Bond shot her a look, part alarmed, part disgusted with her rising panic. He liked Eve, he really did. But no matter what he said to bolster her confidence, she wasn't a very capable field agent. He would much rather have Alex with him guarding Q right now. But Alex had been in Ethiopia last he heard, before a lot of their international communication systems just crashed without warning.

He hadn't shared his suspicions that this outbreak was far more global than just affecting their little isolated island. M would have taken him seriously and confined him to HQ. The Quartermaster would have woken when those zombie neighbours of his broke down his door, fell ravenously on his flesh and next he saw Q, if ever, he would have to put something permanently destructive through his lovely curly-haired head.

He was not abandoning his Quartermaster. Not now. Not ever.

He put a bullet between bloodshot, unseeing eyes of the once elderly cat-lady, winching at the loud thud of her now hopefully forever unmoving body meeting the floor, grateful he had a silencer on his gun at least.

He pulled Q with him, walking slowly, steadily, making as little sound as possible. Q's hand in his was sweaty and clinging with enough force to cut of his blood circulation, but James was pleased to note that the younger man was keeping up his breathing exercise.

Q had a propensity for panting obscenely during physical exertion. Hear-say, unfortunately. Bond hadn't yet been in a position to witness such first hand.

He'd also heard Q was actually a crack shot, when he could be pried away from his digital kingdom long enough to visit the shooting range. Considering Britain and possibly the world had gone to hell overnight, this at least gave him some piece of mind.

Not a lot, though.

Not with Q absentmindedly petting the bracelet around his wrist, soundlessly counting the breaths he took, desperately keeping himself from vomiting or crying. He did snort softly when he realised that Q's gun hand was still steadier than Eve's right now, despite all that.

They would be fine.

He firmly banished the memory of Vesper's watery grave from his mind and let himself be morbidly amused at the hope that she'd been cremated.

They were going to be fine.

He was James Bond and he was going to make sure of it.


End file.
